Chapter 3

AUGUST 1981 TO
JULY 1983

3.1 Introductions56

Going by the advice of the mediators, the T.U.L.F.
had staked much on the success of the D.D.C.s. It had also persuaded a large
section of the militant movement to back the D.D.C. proposals. The government's
failure to deal honestly in this matter and on the other hand its own pursuit
of terror against Tamils were to create a rapidly deteriorating situation between
November 1982 and July 1983. It is an irony of Ceylonese politics that the T.U.L.F.
and the C.W.C., representing Plantation Tamils and under Thondaman, should look
upon the main author of present problems, the U.N.P., as offering the best of
solutions. In this vain hope the T.U.L.F. remained silent waiting for the goods.
The groundswell of Tamil opinion would not have tolerated the T.U.L.F. backing
the U.N.P. in the Presidential elections in October 1982 and in the referendum.
By calculatedly not taking a stand, the T.U.L.F. helped Jayewardene's U.N.P.
to win both the Presidential elections and the referendum which was in any case
won by widespread cheating. At the end of a series of broken promises, the U.N.P.
pleaded once again that to keep its hitherto unhonoured promises to the Tamils
it needed to win both elections and retain its parliamentary majority. The referendum
which took place in December 1982 was in effect an undemocratic exercise depriving
the people of this country of their right to choose their representatives. The
excuse for this was that the government had discovered an undisclosed Naxalite
[1] 1 plot. For this service to the U.N.P. in helping
it to deprive the people of this country of their right to elect, the T.U.L.F.
and the C.W.C. were rewarded with the July 1983 race riots followed by the sixth
amendment expelling the T.U.L.F. from parliament. The C.W.C. was saved by its
control over labour in a crucial sector of the economy as well as by India's
entry into the affairs of this country. For a political party, to lose its combativeness
and remain passive amounts to suicide. This was the fate of the T.U.L.F.. In
many ways the challenge facing the Sinhalese in the South with the rapid rise
of the J.V.P. in 1987 would have close parallels with the experience of the
Tamils after 1977 -- particularly during the period under consideration.

While the T.U.L.F. was waiting
in vain, every new issue brought forth a spontaneous outpouring of public spirit,
led by the university students. These protests were non-violent and were often
against actions of the government under the P.T.A.. The spontaneous character
of these protests was different in quality from the stage managed affairs of
the militant groups after 1985. The militant groups did benefit from the activities
of the students before July 1983 and there was widespread public sympathy for
the militants as "our boys". But those with a base, such as within
the student community, could and did criticise the actions of the militants.
The militants too had to take serious note of such criticism. Many observers
feel that if this trend had continued, there would have been a militant movement
accountable to the public and, therefore, amenable to public control. The July
1983 riots and the adoption by India of the militant groups changed all this.
With material help from India, the militant groups became purely military organisations,
accountable to the R.A.W. and not to the Tamil public. The latter became everyone's
plaything.

There have always been those
who argue that to build up resentment by provoking the worse instincts of the
state is good for revolutionary fervour. But the misery, suffering, fanaticism
and hysteria let loose by such a course on both sides of the division can hardly
encourage democracy and freedom for those who survive. This appears to be a
lesson ill-digested by the Tamils whose tragedy the South seems set to re-live.
The failure of the community to clarify the moral issues would ultimately have
a corrupting influence on the young who dedicated themselves to freedom.

3.2 Through the Eyes of the Saturday
Review

What follows will be a run through
the main events of this period as recorded by the Saturday Review, a weekly
published in Jaffna. The title dates refer to the date of publication. It is
appropriate to quote this paper, because itreflected the sense of buoyancy felt
in Jaffna during this period, punctuated by doubt and foreboding.

May 15, 1982:

"Undergraduates
and students in the North and East boycotted lectures and classes yesterday
(14 May) to protest the continued detention without trial, of Jaffna University
undergraduate Apputhurai Vimalarasa for over a year at the Panagoda Army Camp.
The undergraduates in the University of Colombo too joined in the protest by
boycotting lectures in the afternoon while telegrams asking for the release
of Vimalarasa have been sent to President J. R. Jayewardene by undergraduates
of the other Universities."

Students distributing leaflets
in connection with this protest were arrested by the police in all Tamil districts.
On 17th May the undergraduates organised a massive demonstration in Jaffna defying
a police ban.

May 29, 1982:

Under the front
page headlines "Jaffna violence takes on a new ugly dimension", the
Saturday Review reported the first well-publicised political killings: "Political
youth violence which began seven years ago with the killing of the then pro-government
Mayor Alfred Duraiyappah on 27 July, 1975, has been following a predictable
course ever since, assumed a new dimension on Wednesday 26th May when a popular
social worker and a Tamil liberation activist, P. Iraikumaran (27) was gunned
down along with his friend T. Umakumaran (28) at Alaveddy, by a gang of seven
youths. Alaveddy, a village about ten miles from Jaffna town is in the Kankesanthurai
constituency represented by Tamil United Liberation Front leader A. Amirthalingam.

"Iraikumaran, a Cultivation
Officer, was the Organising Secretary of the Thamil Ilaignar Peravai Viduthalai
Ani (Tamil Youth Front Liberation Wing). He had previously been a member of
the youth front aligned with the T.U.L.F. and had edited a pro-T.U.L.F. paper
Ilaignar Kural (The Voice of the Youth) in 1976." Iraikumaran had been
a critic of the T.U.L.F.'s after breaking away from the party when it accepted
the D.D.C.s. Other sources confirmed later that militants aligned with Uma Maheswaran
were responsible for the killings. One killing began as a misadventure. The
other followed as a cover up. The Saturday Review had neglected to commit itself
to its readers on whether or not the "new dimension" was part of the
"predictable course". These were still the early days of internecine
killings. Press-men did not yet find themselves writing under duress. The Saturday
Review published a powerful editorial in the same issue:

"The political
heat, denied an external outlet, is turning inwards now. Violence of course
is at all times destructive, but violence is now changing direction. It is becoming
self-destructive. In fact there is a new terrifying chill in the political wind.
The air is getting hotter with a new political intolerance. Brother is turning
against brother; guns taught to shoot at targets, find that the targets are
no longer there. A society which learnt to put up with killings, by looking
over its shoulder and recognising a goal at a distance thought there was a thing
called justifiable homicide, as in law. Now they don't see the goal anymore.
It has been politically vitiated...

"The killing of Iraikumaran
and Umakumaran, as we see it is more than mere killings: it is more than terrorism.
It shows all the portents of a new ugly face in the Tamil man's political life.
A society, bereft of a rationale for homicide, is now turning to suicide...

"The truth is that there
is a new underground force in the making, an underground force without ideals,
which if allowed unchecked could even bring about a state of civil strife in
Jaffna, and plunge the whole peninsula into chaos. This has to be nipped in
the bud, and if there is one leader who has sufficient weight and authority
to do this, it is Mr. Amirthalingam."

There was to be civil strife
which reached a feverish height with the L.T.T.E.-T.E.L.O. clash in late April
1986, 47 months later. There was a state of prolonged chaos. When this happened
there was no dilemma for the editorial writers of the Saturday Review, or for
any other journal in Jaffna. If they did not take a holiday, as they did, they
would have been regarded as mad men "turning to suicide". The new
forces were not without ideals. In the case of the L.T.T.E. these ideals had
the character of religious devotion. But these had little to do with Liberty,
Fraternity, and Equality.

The editorial writer quoted
above reflects the popular attitude to violence amongst Jaffna men. They would
maintain that they did not like violence, except that it was sometimes necessary.
They would personally avoid killing. Except for medical men and scientists working
on vivisection, those involved with killing, such as butchers and dog catchers,
were categorised as being from so called low caste groups, as in Sir Thomas
More's Utopia. (Thomas More knew little about India, which makes his
ideas all the more remarkable.) They had the authority of the Mahabharata,
where the men who killed in battle were regarded as a caste group - namely the
Kshatriyas. Even as the militant groups grew in strength and despite the talk
of "our boys", for the upper reaches of Tamil society they remained
essentially an alien caste group. The elite, both locally and abroad, who provided
material and moral support for the militants, could frequently be heard saying
unashamedly, sometimes referring to the Mahabharata, that it may be the business
of the fighters to obtain freedom; but the business of ruling, however, must
be in the hands of those who are wise and educated. The latter often meant the
sons of the elite who were abroad. The militants of course were aware of this
and for many of those who had sacrificed successful careers at school, this
was hard to bear. Thus the Jaffna man's ambivalence towards violence also extended
to an ambivalence towards the militants, who in turn felt that others were trying
to use them. This may partly explain the cynicism and hatred of the L.T.T.E.
towards the civilian population which reached new heights in 1987. The editorial
writer, like everyone else, was moved to questioning and doubting over the two
killings in May 1982. Yet, like others, he avoided answering the question whether
there was a rationale for homicide that does not lead to suicide. Note also
the hope reposed on Amirthalingam in a dark moment.

The Saturday Review of 5 June,
1982 said that following the mass protests, Vimalarasa who was not tried for
over a year, was brought before the Court of Appeal by the army authorities
on Monday, 31 May. A bench consisting of Justices Seneviratne and Abeyawardene
gave time till 19 July for the State to file affidavits and fixed the trial
for 26 July.

The issue of 12 June announced
that Vimalarasa and nine other detainees had been released on 7 June, two days
before the T.U.L.F. leader Mr. Amirthalingam was to meet President Jayewardene
on the matter. The paper speculated that this move to steal the wind from Amirthalingam's
sails may have been in order to woo the Tamils directly before the President's
first official visit to Jaffna. Another probable reason was that having been
pressurised into going to Court, the government may have discovered that its
case was weak. This was often the case with arrests under the P.T.A.. This victory
gave the students a new prestige.

5 June, 1982:

Under the heading
Tiger File, The Saturday Review reported the incident which heralded India's
role in this country's affairs. It quoted the Indian Express of 21 May, which
reported the incident of the 19th at Pondi Bazaar on its front page: "According
to the police, there was a confrontation between two groups, and in the process,
Prabhakaran (28) alias Karikalan and Sivakumar (24) alias Raghavan opened fire
with unlicensed revolvers on Mukundan (Uma Maheswaran) and Jotheeswaran (22).
Jotheeswaran sustained four bullet injuries in his leg and was admitted to the
Rayapettah hospital. Mukundan escaped in the melee. On hearing gun-shots, Deputy
Inspector Nandakumar of the Pondy Bazaar Crime Detachment rushed to the spot
with his staff and arrested the culprits."

The Saturday Review further
added that Uma Maheswaran who had got away on his motorcycle was captured after
a massive police search at a railway station on 25 May. Two revolvers and a
vial of cyanide were found on his person. The incident represented the bitter
split between the Liberation Tigers and P.L.O.T.E. that was now surfacing openly.
Many Tamil Nadu politicians and lawyers got into the act trying to patch up
the split. The militants went along expressing regret over the incident together
with a desire for unity. The PTI quoted both parties as feeling that continued
disunity between them could only jeopardise their real object of achieving Tamil
Eelam. Uma Maheswaran who had been a surveyor by profession, expressed appreciation
for the way the Tamil Nadu police had treated them. When he required some books
on surveying, the Tamil Nadu police had brought them to him after a prolonged
search in several bookshops. It all looked homely enough. "Boys will be
boys. They will shake hands and be friendly in the interests of a higher cause,"
was the general feeling around. The Saturday Review reflected the public view
in expressing a hint of satisfaction that powerful attempts at obtaining extradition
by the Sri Lankan government were failing. It quoted the SUN's front page headline:
"TAMIL NADU POLITICOS GIVE PATRONAGE TO TIGERS: TREMENDOUS FINANCIAL BACKING
AND 'SAFE HOUSE': M.G.R.'s life too threatened by terrorists". That was
six years ago. The naive belief that the central government in India was bowing
to Tamil Nadu pressure seemed a satisfactory explanation to both sides in Ceylon.
We all lived in a cynical world where everyone thought he could cleverly use
the other to get his own ends. Many Tamils thought they could use India to get
Eelam. Who was master of the game would emerge much later. But for the moment
all eyes were on the two boys - both makers and victims of history. We could
thumb our noses at the Sinhalese. It was a time for some rejoicing. Tomorrow
would take care of itself.

12 June, 1982:

An excerpt from
an appreciation to the late Bishop Leo Nanayakkara by P. Arulanantham reads
thus: "In 1973-75 there were many destitutes on the streets of Badulle,
most of whom were persons displaced from the tea estates. Bishop Leo was the
organiser behind the organisation of the Beggar Rehabilitation Camp, with the
help of official and private bodies who were willing to help. He was a practical
man. Bishop Leo was a champion of the oppressed. He studied the problem of insurgents
taken into captivity in 1971 and took practical measures to help them. He consistently
expressed the view that the Tamils and the Tamil language should enjoy equal
rights in this country."

3 July, 1982:

"Three
policemen and a Police driver were shot to death by unknown gunmen who ambushed
a Police jeep at Nelliady junction in the Point Pedro area, Jaffna, at about
7:30 p.m. on Friday the night of July 2. The dead policemen were Gunapala, Arunthavarajah,
Mallawaratchi and Ariyaratne (driver). The O.I.C., Point Pedro, Inspector I.
Thiruchittampalam and Constables Sivarajah and Ananda were admitted to Jaffna
hospital with injuries. The assailants are believed to have escaped in a passing
car."

The editorial commented: "If
the killed are those who become victims of circumstances, the killers are themselves
victims of circumstances. If a government cannot find ways to stop creating
and fostering these circumstances, that government had failed in its duty by
all its citizens."

That was obviously true. Most
Tamils then thought that such sentiments represented the end of the matter as
far as they were concerned. Then again they were depending on a provenly undependable
government to wake up and deliver the goods, thus being party to the drift.

The issue of 18 September in
its lead story stated that the General Council of the T.U.L.F. was likely to
take a decision that would enable the Tamils to keep away from the Presidential
elections altogether. The issue of 25 September gave an instance of the kind
of interference with the process of the law by the government that increasingly
made Tamils sympathise with militants.

25 September, 1982:

"The Mallakam
Magistrate, Mr. C. V. Wigneswaran, discharged Lieutenant Mandukodi de Saram
and Privates K. J. Silva and R. T. Silva on 22 September, on the instructions
of the Attorney General Mr. Shiva Pasupati. The three army men were earlier
remanded and then bailed out in connection with the shooting of a lame youth
Kandiah Navaratnam at Atchuvely on the night of 20 February."

16 October, 1982:

The following
is an exerpt from an article by Dayan Jayatilleke on the J.V.P.'s stand on the
National Question (the Tamil - Sinhalese division). The J.V.P. (Peoples' Liberation
Front) leader Rohana Wijeweera was one of the contestants of the Presidential
Elections: "He (Wijeweera in a public speech) accused the U.N.P. government
of sending 'innocent' police and military men to their deaths. He also accuses
the S.L.F.P. of promising Swaraj (Own Rule) through its spokesman K. B. Ratnayake,
to the Tamils... Comrade Wijeweera also proceeds in the course of his masterly
analysis of the National Question, to provide his audience with the doubtless
useful and very relevant data that five top police officers are Tamils. In fact
he is kind enough to provide his young Sinhalese audience with their names in
what he fondly supposes is a Tamil accent. Rohana's boast that his is the only
party to hold meetings in the North, is in the same spirit as that of a gangster
who boasts that he and his boys were tough enough to go into the North side
of the town, i.e. territory controlled by another gang, and return in one piece.
In other words he is telling his constituency that it is he and his party, rather
than the U.N.P. and S.L.F.P., that are tough enough to deal with the Eelam threat."

23 October, 1982:

The Saturday
Review reported an attack by a militant group on a police station. The group
was later identified as the L.T.T.E. (Tigers): "Three policemen on duty
at Chavakachcheri Police Station were shot dead in a lightning dawn attack by
a party of armed youth on Wednesday, October 27th. About 12 hours later the
Police imposed an instant 12 hour curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the Jaffna
district creating panic and confusion among the public. Guns and ammunition
were also stolen at the Police Station along with some files. The weapons consisted
of two sub-machine guns, nine rifles, 19 repeater guns and two shot guns. The
dead men are P.C. Kandiah of Mirusuvil, P. C. Karunanadan of Uduvil and P. C.
Tillekeratne of Kegalle. A remand suspect in a murder case who happened to be
under lock-up at the Police Station, Kandiah Selvam, also died in the cross
fire.

"P. C. Jayatilleke who
had jumped down from the upper storey of the Police Station was injured by the
fall. He had been admitted to the Jaffna General Hospital along with Sergeant
Kandiah who suffered gunshot injuries. Two more remand prisoners, Karthigesu
and Aiyathurai were also wounded. It is believed that there was an exchange
of fire for about 15 minutes... It is believed that two of the youths have been
injured and that one of them could have died. Army personnel who went to Chavakachcheri
after the attack discovered spent cartridges and unexploded bullets."

Papers in the South added that
the attackers had to leave abruptly as one of the policemen took up a hidden
position and started sniping at the attackers.

The security forces in the North
had not yet been brutalised to a point where their reflex action would be to
go about on a rampage killing prisoners and civilians at random.

The same issue of the Saturday
Review announced in its lead story that, having won the presidential elections
(J. R. Jayewardene, U.N.P., 52.91%; Hector Kobbekaduwa, S.L.F.P., 39.07%. Mrs.
Bandaranaike was prevented from appearing or canvassing for the SLFP because
of a questionable suspension of her civic rights.), the government was planning
to hold a referendum in order to extend the life of the parliament by six years.
The referendum to be held before Christmas would seek a simple yes or no from
the voters. This surprise move came at a time when the country at large was
expecting general elections to elect a new parliament. The move was deceitfully
packaged to attract the support of Tamils who had been repeatedly tricked. The
story went: "Speculation is rife in Jaffna that the T.U.L.F. leader, Mr.
Appapillai Amirthalingam, may be offered high office in the Government that
would eventually lead to the formation of a National Government in the country...
Certain constitutional changes that require a two-thirds majority are believed
to be under contemplation that would facilitate this process. The holding of
a referendum seeking the extension of the life of the parliament by six years
from August 1983 and a complete revamping of the Cabinet and Parliamentary Group
are believed to be steps that will help in this direction... It is believed
that such a government that will cut through party differences and draw in talent
from non-U.N.P. sources could not only help in the continuity of the government's
economic programme but solve the vexing 'TAMIL PROBLEM' as well."

Thus the government which had
repeatedly dishonoured its word to the Tamils was now inviting the Tamils to
trust it once more in order to cheat the entire country of their right to elect.

The paper was soon undeceived
as it started publishing protests from all over the country. The Civil Rights
Movement (C.R.M.) in three statements referred to the "dangerous and unprecedented
nature of this step which threatened the very basis of democratic parliamentary
government founded on periodic elections of the people's representatives."
It pointed out that "the move was in breach of Sri Lanka's obligations
under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights." Ceylon
had only the previous year celebrated 50 years of universal adult franchise.

R. P. Wijeratne writing from
Colombo said: "The bizarre spectacle of honourable ministers and M.P.'s
of the governing party being submitted en masse to the indignity of handing
over undated letters of resignation to their leader is further evidence of this
kind of cynicism. Apart from the mutual distrust revealed by these arrangements,
the complete surrender of wills and independence by representatives elected
by the people, to a leader however estimable, will certainly not enhance their
prestige and standing in the eyes of the people."

In a telegram to the President,
the C.R.M. pointed out that the referendum was neither free nor fair, because
an emergency was in force, under which several opposition newspapers (including
Aththa) had been prevented from publication and had had their presses sealed.

In a letter signed on behalf
of the M.I.R.J.E. (Movement for Inter Racial Justice and Equality) by its president
Fr. Paul Caspersz, a doughty fighter for minority rights, an appeal was made
to the T.U.L.F.. It was asked to refrain from being drawn into discussions with
the government on the national question until the conclusion of the referendum
and to participate actively in a campaign for the preservation of the fundamental
rights of the people to elect their own M.P.'s. It further deplored efforts
at that juncture by the government to place before Tamil-speaking people, token
concessions as solutions to their problems and considered such overtones opportunistic
and intended to compel the T.U.L.F. to soft-pedal its campaign against the Government's
proposal at the referendum.

This provided an opportune moment
for the T.U.L.F. to take up a principled stand and resume its combative role.
A principled stand could have meant only one thing - totally to oppose the fraud
the government was trying to inflict on the entire country. This would have
given both the Tamils and the T.U.L.F. a new prestige countrywide. Mr. Amirthalingam
could be combative when he wished to. But since the late 1970's the party organisation
had been in a deeply frozen state, with the younger elements slipping away into
militant ranks. When the matter of the referendum was brought before parliament,
the T.U.L.F. showed its lukewarmness by speaking against it while at the same
time not registering a single protest vote. The same puzzling attitude was displayed
by the T.U.L.F. during the general strike of mid-1980, which the government
put down with large-scale repression. In support of the strikers, university
members, teachers and trade unionists organised a one-day hartal and march in
Jaffna. The T.U.L.F. declined to join. When questioned, a very senior T.U.L.F.
member replied that the matter was a "Southern problem". Here was
a classic instance of divide and rule. The T.U.L.F. had voluntarily submitted
the Tamils to ghetto politics, when with a little vision it could have enhanced
respect for the Tamils. The government kept the T.U.L.F. quiet by means of a
few perks for parliamentarians and the promise of "jam tomorrow" for
the Tamils. But as in that famous song "Tomorrow never comes", the
result was a dangerous isolation of the Tamils, putting them entirely at the
mercy of the government. The T.U.L.F. is a product of Tamil society. The preoccupation
of its elite has not been with doing the right thing or the principled thing,
but with doing what seems clever and convenient. Thus at that time (1988) when
people should have been trying to restore democracy by forging links with all
democratic sections in the South and by improving Sinhalese-Tamil relations,
they seem to have been holding onto another will-o-the-wisp. The only idea coming
from the Tamil elite today was a plea to India to negotiate with the L.T.T.E.
- meaning, give them (the L.T.T.E.) something so that they would be left alone.
As an eminent public man put it in words that cannot mean anything: "The
Tigers and the Indian Army are our two precious eyes. We cannot be without either
one of them." This is the counterpart of the T.U.L.F.'s stand in the early
1980's.

13 November 1982:

The Saturday
Review quoted a press report, according to which President Jayewardene told
his District Ministers that he had an assurance from the T.U.L.F. leadership
that it would not actively canvass against the referendum. The Saturday Review
further said: "An interview the Secretary General of the T.U.L.F. (Tamil
United Liberation Front) and Leader of the Opposition, Mr. A. Amirthalingam,
gave a Colombo week-end paper recently fuelled speculation that the T.U.L.F.
leader may be offered high office in a "National Government" as forecast
by the Saturday Review in its issue of 23 October.

"Mr. Amirthalingam
made it quite clear, in the course of the interview, that the T.U.L.F. will
not boycott Parliament nor join any so called 'common front' in campaigning
against the referendum." Mr. Amirthalingam further added: "Even if
the Government carries the referendum through, we will remain in Parliament
until August 3, 1983 when this term runs out. At this point the General Council
will decide as to who should represent the T.U.L.F. in parliament for the extended
period."

Thus it appeared to the T.U.L.F.
leadership that it could imitate the undemocratic example set by President Jayewardene,
who had obtained undated letters of resignation from his parliamentary group
to set up a tame parliament after the referendum. It seemed a bargain to the
T.U.L.F. -- the price was for it to remain non-committal. To be doubly sure,
the government did some arm twisting as well. The same issue reported that the
Government had ordered its officers in the North and East to turn down all requests
by T.U.L.F. M.P.s - the small mercies afforded to keep them in hope: "Education
authorities in the North and East were summoned to Colombo to be told bluntly
not to oblige the T.U.L.F. M.P.'s requests for transfers and appointments...
Meanwhile the appointments of 15 bank employees recommended by the T.U.L.F.
M.P. for Vavuniya, Mr. T. Sivasithamparam, have been cancelled." All requests
to the Education authorities were to be reported to the head office in Colombo,
so that M.P.s wanting favours would have to go to the government directly.

Looking back one can hardly
understand why the T.U.L.F. subjected itself and the Tamils to this loss of
self-respect and humiliation on the basis of promises that were not likely to
be honoured. A dedication to principle could have saved the Tamils from the
calamity that was to come. The betrayal of democracy by the T.U.L.F. at this
point may be compared with that by well-heeled Tamil gentlemen in Parliament
voting for the bills of 1948 which made plantation workers of Indian origin,
also fellow Tamils, non-citizens. At that time Mr. S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the
founder of the T.U.L.F., did the honourable thing in passionately opposing that
bill. But the old habit of the Tamil elite being voluntary slaves to the Sinhalese
ruling class, from whom they received patronage, had not changed.

27 November,
1982:

In the meantime
things were taking a different turn, involving spontaneous mass protests over
the detention of several prominent Tamils on suspicion of being involved with
militants: "Tamil politics entered a new mass agitational phase in Jaffna
this week, following the arrests and questioning of several Roman Catholic,
Methodist and Anglican priests in connection with terrorism and the Neervely
Bank robbery of 1981 and the peremptory ascribing of guilt to the members of
the clergy by the State-controlled and other media in Colombo.

"Whole-day protest fasts
and sit-ins are being held throughout the peninsula with the Tamil United Liberation
Front itself actively mounting a chorus of protests. On Tuesday 30th, there
will be a collective one-day fast in both the North and the East, demanding
an end to the arbitrary detention of the priests and University Assistant Lecturer
Nithyananthan and his wife Nirmala, the abolition of the prevention of Terrorism
Act and an end to State terrorism."

The arrested priests were of
course the Rev. Fr. Singarayar, the Rev. Fr. Sinnarasa (both Roman Catholic),
Rev. Jeyatilakarajah (Methodist) and the Rev. Donald Kanagaratnam (Anglican,
Vavuniya). Dr. Jeyakularajah (Puttur Mission Hospital), brother of the Rev.
Jeyatilekarajah was also arrested. The Rev. Kanagaratnam, formerly principal
of the Pilimatalawa Theological seminary, was released shortly afterwards. He
had resigned his principalship at the seminary after some Sinhalese members
made an issue of his refusal to raise the national flag on Independence Day
1978 on the grounds that the Tamil speaking part of the nation had suffered
grievous oppression during the 1977 race riots. He had then gone on to found
Unity House in the border area of Vavuniya to work for Sinhalese-Tamil amity.
He had good personal relations with the Sinhalese of that area. Rev. Singarayar
was finally released after the July 1987 Accord. The rest had escaped to India
from Batticaloa prison. They and Fr. Singarayar had narrowly escaped during
the two prison massacres in July 1983.

On the lighter side, soldiers
who had been sent to search the home of the Nithyanandans, in the same compound
as that of Nirmala's parents, Mr. & Mrs. Rajasingam, were asked to wait
there. The soldiers felt bored, having nothing to do. They went about plucking
flowers and made a large garland, which was then presented to the cow tied in
the compound.

Previously, in the issue of
20 November, 1982, the Saturday Review had strongly protested the slanderous
allegations being made with impunity against those arrested, in the Southern
press, with a lead piece titled "STOP THIS PEN AND DAGGER JOURNALISM."

11 December, 1982:

Writing in the
section "Political Causerie," the Colombo based columnist Gamini Navaratne,
dealt with President Jayewardene's allegation of a "Naxalite Plot,"
as the excuse for holding the referendum in place of the General Elections.
The alleged Naxalites were a group of Mrs. Bandaranaike's S.L.F.P., which led
the presidential campaign of its candidate Mr. Hector Kobbekaduwa. According
to President Jayewardene's information, this group had planned to assassinate
him, a few other Ministers, Mrs. Bandaranaike's son Anura and the Armed Services
Chiefs, among others. According to him, they would thereupon do away with the
constitution and imprison Mrs. Bandaranaike. Except for farcical dramas like
the questioning of Mr. Kobbekaduwa, nothing was ever proved then or in later
years.

Gamini Navaratne referred to
several instances where members of the U.N.P. had openly indulged in violence
and where no action had been taken: after the 1977 elections, in June 1981 during
the D.D.C. elections, in August 1981 when communal violence had been unleashed
in many places including the plantations and after the Presidential elections.
The persons who attacked the meeting of the Sinhala Balamandalaya had no action
taken against them, even after they had been identified by others. Navaratne
added: "Unless action is taken against them, could sections of the opposition
be blamed if they regard the latest coup allegation as a cover for the Government,
while keeping the S.L.F.P. machinery effectively strangled, to distract people's
attention from the looming economic crisis, instil fear in their minds about
a "Naxalite", (that is Communist) threat and stampede them into saying
"Yes" at the Referendum by clever manipulation of the state-monopolised
mass media?"

Protest against the Prevention
of Terrorism Act and the recent arrests reached a high point in Vavuniya when
steel helmeted police used batons and tear gas inside St. Anthony's Church at
Rambaikulam on 15 December.

18 December, 1982:

"Hundreds
of girls, women, children and men - including Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and
Christians - began a protest fast on Wednesday on the church premises. As scheduled,
a silent march headed by school-girls with mouths gagged and wearing black badges
had just come to the road when police pounced upon them, dragged the girls by
their hair, and kicked and baton-charged them when they defied police orders
to disperse. The baton charge took place when the girls sat on the ground refusing
to move. Then the police stormed into the church and baton charged protestors
who sought refuge there.

"Nine people were arrested
including the Gandhiyam's Dr. Rajasundaram, Mr. M.S. Kandiah (Social Worker,
75 years old), T.E.L.F. Secretary M. K. Eelaventhan, Dr. K.S.N. Fernando and
David Naganathan. Tension was high in Vavuniya following the Police rampage
and all shops put up their shutters."

Dr. K.S.N. Fernando was a Sinhalese
doctor attached to Vavuniya hospital and a dedicated human rights activist.
He was subject to much abuse by Sub-Inspector Gunasinghe for being an alleged
traitor and was badly assaulted by the policeman who also took revenge on him
for having earlier filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court. After his arrest
Dr. Fernando was at one point beaten unconscious. The Sub-Inspector who indiscriminately
assaulted participants, also threatened to kill a Kumarasinghe if he was there.
Kumarasinghe was a Sinhalese activist for the Movement for Inter Racial Justice
and Equality (M.I.R.J.E.) in Vavuniya.

The government's handling of
these protests was fuelling Tamil anger without in any way reducing the momentum
of the protests. The spate of public protests continued. The students of the
University of Jaffna organised a large demonstration on 26 January, 1983, followed
by a 4 day fast starting on 1 February, 1983.

The results of the referendum
were announced on 23 December, 1982 the day after polling. The "Yes"
vote to extend the term of the government came to 54.66% of the valid votes,
with the "No'' vote amounting to 45.34%. Of registered voters, 70.7% voted
as opposed to 80% in the Presidential elections. But that was not the whole
story. The Government had used its machinery, both official and unofficial,
to perpetrate election fraud on an unprecedented scale. This was a country where
elections had traditionally been reasonably clean. It was some time before the
details came out.

In his book, "Sri Lanka:
The Holocaust and After", (Marram Books, London, 1984), L. Piyadasa
rightly argues that, in a country where voter participation has been traditionally
high, as much as 86.7% in 1977, the natural instinct of the people would have
been to say that they wanted elections to elect their own representatives, even
if only to return the U.N.P. with a massive majority. This consideration itself
made the result of the referendum highly improbable. All indications are that
there were many untoward happenings starting with the partiality of the police.
Piyadasa rightly argues:

"Moreover,
opposition polling observers were, in a large number of carefully checked cases,
prevented by threats of murder or of having their homes burnt, by false arrest,
assault and robbery of documents, (e.g.: identification) from functioning as
polling observers. Officially appointed presiding officers were intimidated
and manhandled when they challenged impersonators or tried to stop thuggery
within polling booths by legally unauthorized persons. Many voters were prevented
from voting freely or voting at all. This was done openly, with police connivance
or collaboration, by U.N.P. thugs in many ways, including compelling voters
to show how they had marked their papers and preventing people known to be members
of "Vote NO" groups and parties from leaving their homes. Very prominent
in the organising and carrying out of the violence and intimidation were Paul
Perera (who was not long afterwards nominated to be an M.P.), and a gun wielding
M.P., Anura Bastian, whom the President appointed Deputy Minister in charge
of the Home Guards soon afterwards! There was impersonation on a scale never
before attempted in Sri Lanka. In one polling booth, the Presiding Officer had
counted one person voting 72 times, and had officially reported this to his
superior. In most of the country it required real courage to vote "No"
in these conditions."

There were other minor miracles
too. In Mrs. Bandaranaike's electorate Attanagala, she as the leader of the
S.L.F.P. decided to withdraw all her observers and party agents from her electorate.
This was after her agents were brutally and repeatedly beaten up and threatened
with death. In this electorate where she had received a massive majority in
1977, the "Yes" votes counted after the polling were 35,747, as against
22,531 for Jayewardene at the presidential election!

In the Jaffna district, the
voter turn out was 290,849 - 60% of registered voters - of whom 91.3% voted
"No," no that is, to extending the life of the parliament. The voter
turn out was 46% for the presidential elections. The voter turn out would certainly
have been much higher if the T.U.L.F. had actively campaigned for the "No"
vote. The registered voters in Jaffna numbered 493,705. The voting population
in Ceylon was 8,148,015. The majority claimed by the government was 535,240.
All Tamil districts voted for having General Elections: Vanni - 64.9%, Trincomalee
- 56.4%, and Batticaloa - 60.1%; so did, in general, the districts of the deep
South, despite the intimidation: Kalutara - 50.4%, Galle -52.6%, Hambantota
- 55% and Matara -49.2%. It is these last named districts that form the base
for the J.V.P.'s current (1988) insurgency against the government. The government's
proposal to continue the present parliament for another term received its highest
support, with the malpractices, in the areas with a high estate Tamil population
whose leader Mr. S. Thondaman was a minister in the government: Nuwara Eliya
- 72.7%, Badulla - 69.9%, Kandy - 62.2%, and Matale - 73.5%. This was an irony,
in view of the legislation against this community in 1948/49 by a U.N.P. government
of the time.

It may be mentioned that the
vote in the Laggala electorate in the Matale district was challenged. The Sun
had reported on 23 December, that the voters had been cut off from their polling
stations as a result of floods and earthslips. But out of an electorate of 35,129,
26,115 registered their votes at the referendum, as compared with 17,354 at
the presidential polls!

In the Tamil districts, the
low voter turn out (60-70%), together with the somewhat indecisive vote (except
in Jaffna), can be attributed to the failure of the T.U.L.F. to form a common
front with the parties wanting general elections and mounting a campaign to
underline a sense of urgency. The excuse normally offered by the T.U.L.F. and
Mr. Thondaman's C.W.C. (Ceylon Workers Congress representing Tamil Plantation
Workers) for neither campaigning against nor supporting the government, is that
the former coalition government of Mrs. Bandaranaike which included the two
major Left parties, the L.S.S.P. and the C.P., had completely ignored them.
This was true. But at the same time the present U.N.P. government only listened
to them nominally. It had already showed a tendency to use race riots as a political
weapon in August 1981 in which many of the victims were plantation Tamils supporting
the C.W.C.. President Jayewardene, while blaming some of his own party in moving
words, did nothing to discipline them. The unkindest cut of all was to come
in July 1983. The only real option that had been open to the T.U.L.F. and the
C.W.C. was to take a principled stand on behalf of the democratic rights of
the whole country and oppose the government. This would have increased their
prestige throughout the country and possibly brought them out of marginal patronage
politics into national politics. The position of the Tamils too would have been
rendered more secure in the long run.

To many it would seem unbelievable
that the T.U.L.F. under a once combative leader like Amirthalingam, should sit
back and allow things to drift waiting for the promised jam. The T.U.L.F. too
had reflected the general lack of conviction about democracy amongst the Tamil
elite, whose public conduct was for the most part based on patronage. Although
not very evident at that time, the T.U.L.F.'s inactivity during the referendum
had cut it adrift from its political base. The Jaffna voter had shown that he
had a mind of his own by registering a 91.3% vote against the government's proposal.
Despite the T.U.L.F.'s lukewarmness, 60% (14% more than in the Presidential
elections) had taken the trouble to go and register their opinion. For a political
party to indulge in secret talks without actively articulating the feelings
in its own constituency, spelt political suicide.

President Jayewardene could
now afford to treat the Tamils and their representatives with contempt. As far
as his immediate ambitions were concerned, he had the Tamils in his pocket,
as he did his party's M.P.s. The Tamils were now subject to his whims and his
irresponsibility. He was not going to give them jam. He was going to give them
cake in the sense in which Marie Antoniette meant it, when the Parisians asked
for bread.

1 January, 1983:

Little attention
was paid to the vote in the deep South at this time. In a post-mortem
of the referendum by Staff Writer Suresh in the Saturday Review, it was pointed
out that the electorates of 5 Cabinet Ministers, 5 Deputy Ministers and 19 U.N.P.
M.P.s "voted clearly for a dissolution of the present government."
Most of those were in the deep South.

But in early 1983, with the
Tamils in the President's pocket and the South under the heel of the Police
and the U.N.P. goon squads, the fraud was accepted meekly. Given the situation
of burning anger and humiliation below the surface in the South, a mounting
insurgency in the North and the government's control over the media, the government
with its characteristic irresponsibility and cynicism, found it very natural
to direct Sinhalese feelings to find release in an orgy of anti-Tamil violence.

8 January, 1983:

The Saturday
Review sensed the new mood of repression. In its lead piece titled "WE
SMELL DANGER," it had this to say: "We have been tipped off by friends
from various quarters, some of them surprising quarters close to government
decision making processes, that we are now under very close surveillance and
scrutiny and the axe might fall on us any time."

In a climate of increasing repression
in the South, which began with the break up of the 1980 general strike and the
advent of the multi-nationals which began to disrupt life even in remote villages,
the Left felt helpless. The only Sinhalese area where there was some active
opposition to the state was in the Moneragala District, where some Leftist groups
were helping the villagers to resist the takeover of common lands by sugar multinationals,
through protest campaigns. For this reason, many Left leaning persons and organisations
in the South were looking to the North for inspiration, where there was popular
resistance to the government. The Ceylon Teachers' Union (with 47,000 members)
and the Revolutionary Marxist Party, had in June 1982 issued statements opposing
the extradition from India to Ceylon of Mr. Prabhakaran and Mr. Uma Maheswaran,
arrested in India a few weeks earlier.

22 January, 1983:

The Saturday
Review carried an interview with Bala Tampoe, General Secretary of the C.M.U.
(Ceylon Mercantile Union) which contained this extract:

But he said
he could already see young men who had neither names nor labels, but only lessons
and experience, who were converging to form a new radical opposition to the
oppressive government. "It is such earlier unheard of people like Kuttimani
and Thevan who have the stuff in them to form a truly revolutionary force."
Though most of the Leftists are demoralised after the debacle in the Presidential
and Referendum polls, Mr. Bala Tampoe is very optimistic. He said: "I see
history as waves. So far we have been in the receding wave. But even in the
gloomy oppressive atmosphere of Jayewardene's rule, I can now see an advancing
wave that will soon shatter all tyrannical forces ahead of it."

19 February, 1983:

The following
appeared in a Saturday Review article by a Southern Leftist, Kusal Perera:

The Left would
have to fight for a broad unity among the working class at factory level on
transitional demands, where the right of self-determination of the Tamil people
would be included. The Tamil Trade Union Federation will have to come out of
hibernation and join actively any such working class unity.

In short, the Left and the Tamil
militants will have to forge a massive anti-government mass-movement with the
working class at the head of it. That would be the only process of achieving
an Eelam, for separation to be possible under this crisis ridden, capitalist,
semi-dictatorship.

Another left
party, the N.S.S.P., a break away group of the old L.S.S.P., led by Vasudeva
Nanayakkara and Vikramabahu Karunaratne, made a considerable impact in Jaffna
and even acquired a following amongst students. It advocated self-determination
for the Tamils. Its base in the South too was small, but was concentrated in
certain areas. Its leader, Mr. Nanayakkara, later fought a remarkable by-election
after the July 1983 violence, which got the government truly worried. Unlike
the old ways of fighting elections, the N.S.S.P. laid down its policy towards
Tamils clearly before the Sinhalese constituency. The threat was taken so seriously
that President Jayewardene himself made a campaign appearance. There was a high
incidence of state thuggery. Many believe that Mr. Nanayakkara actually won
the by-election.

However the Left was too divided
at this time to make an impact. It could not decide on a single candidate for
the Presidential elections. It was mainly romanticising about future possibilities,
often put forward as certainties, as in Bala Tampoe's case, cited above. However
the interest shown by the Left in the South helped to give the Tamil militants
a Leftist image.

The Saturday Review's issue
of 19 February, 1983, also reported a court-room drama which made a powerful
impact in this country as well as amongst Tamils living abroad:

This happened
on Thursday when Senior Defence Counsel N. Satyendra, concluding his voire
dire proceedings of the Neervely Bank Cash Robbery told court: "As
regards my clients, the accused, I wish to state publicly from this Court of
record, that in the presence of those individuals who belong to my community
and who have been prepared to sacrifice what is perhaps the most precious possession
of any individual - his very life - for the cause of liberation of their people,
I feel humble."

It was this
group from which the T.E.L.O. claimed its antecedents and was led by the third
named Sri Sabaratnam. Kuttimani and Thangadurai died during the prison massacre
of 25 July, 1983. What would not have been dreamed of by the public at this
time was that the T.E.L.O. leader would be killed 39 months later on the orders
of the leadership of Mr. Prabhakaran's Tigers.

5 March, 1983:

The unprecedented
court drama had its second act on 24 February, 1983 when the first accused,
Thangathurai, made a moving statement before the court. Subsequently the six
accused were sentenced to life imprisonment on two counts and 15 years of rigorous
imprisonment each on two other counts. The presiding High Court Judge was Mr.
C. L. T. Moonemale. Thangathurai's speech may have been a historic speech had
his political heirs become successful. At that time it had an effect on the
Tamils from which all militant factions benefited. The third anniversary of
the Welikade prison massacre took place shortly after the decimation of the
T.E.L.O. by the Tigers which rekindled some of the scenes of the July 1983 anti-Tamil
pogrom. In several places attempts to distribute leaflets commemorating the
prison massacre in which Kuttimani and Thangathurai died were stopped by the
Tigers.

Thangathurai's moving speech
in Tamil eloquently recalled the historic experience of the Tamils and contained
these lines: "We are not lovers of violence nor victims of mental disorders.
We are fighters belonging to an organisation that is struggling to liberate
our people. To those noble souls who keep prating terrorism, we have something
to say. Did you not get frightened of terrorism when hundreds of Tamils got
massacred in cold blood, when racist hate spread like fire in this country of
yours? Did terrorism mean nothing to you when Tamil women were raped? When cultural
treasures were set on fire? When hundreds of Tamil homes were looted? Why, in
1977 alone 400 Tamils lost their lives reddening the sky above with their splattered
blood. Did you not see any terrorism then? It is only when a few policemen are
killed in Tamil Eelam and a few million rupees bank money robbed that terrorism
strikes you in the face... But my fervent prayer is that innocent Sinhalese
people should not have to reap what power hungry Sinhalese politicians have
sown. These tribulations are a boon bestowed by God to purify us. The final
victory is ours."

At this point student unrest
in all of Ceylon's Universities was taking shape. What must have disturbed the
government was the co-ordination between the student bodies of the different
universities. This was sundered in the climate of racism following the July
1983 disturbances. However this did not bring peace to the Universities in the
South which came to be known as more closed than open. The mood of racism fostered
by the government, accompanied by frustration with the government itself, provided
fresh opportunities for the J.V.P. in the coming years. However, the mood at
that time was captured in a report in the Saturday Review: "Repeal the
Prevention of Terrorism Act". This was one of the main demands of undergraduates
of all universities and university campuses in Sri Lanka who carried out a one-day
token boycott of lectures on 24 February. The undergraduates have also demanded
that the government keep its hands off the Universities. This demand refers
specifically to the statement made recently by University Grants Commission
(U.G.C.), Chairman Dr. Stanley Kalpage, that legislation is on the way to take
over the administration of the universities and his threat that the U.G.C. would
cancel the scholarships and loan facilities of students who go on strike...
The third demand of the undergraduates was that students of the Kotelawala Defence
Academy should not be admitted to the University of Colombo.

12 March, 1983:

This issue reported
mounting unrest in Jaffna over the detention of three students. It went on:
"Meanwhile a wave of discontent is sweeping the University Campuses throughout
the country. The Colombo University strike went into the second week while undergraduates
at Peradeniya, Kelaniya, Ruhuna and Batticaloa began boycotting all classes
on Monday protesting the 'Police brutality' unleashed on the strikers at Colombo
and Sri Jayewardenepura Universities."

Around this time events were
gaining a new momentum. On 4 March two Army vehicles were ambushed near Kilinochchi
injuring five soldiers. On 14 March Government Officers wielding clubs and batons,
claiming to act on the orders of the Assistant Government Agent set fire to
16 huts belonging to hill country Tamils in a refugee settlement at Pankulam,
Trincomalee District. The refugees were supported by Gandhiyam. This was a sign
that the state was preparing to use an iron fist against communities, as opposed
to individuals as in the past.

On 5 April 1983, a march organised
by students protesting the P.T.A. was beaten and broken up by a Police tear-gas
attack. The marchers had initially avoided a Police cordon by starting from
the Cathedral grounds instead of the grounds of St. James' Church, Main Street,
as earlier announced. (The news that was immediately alarming was the government
crackdown on Gandhiyam.)

9 April 9, 1983:

"Gandhiyam
Society, the only major voluntary service organisation engaged in community
development projects in Tamil areas in Sri Lanka and the only active body looking
after Tamil refugee resettlements, was raided by a combined team of Sri Lankan
Army, Police and Criminal Investigation Department officials on Wednesday, 6th
April at 10:00 a.m. The Organising Secretary of Gandhiyam, Dr. S. Rajasundaram,
was himself taken away to an unspecified destination. Since there was no warrant
for his arrest and since no reasons were given, it is believed that he was taken
into custody under the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act."

30 April, 1983:

The death of
Navaratnarajah in Army custody further aroused Tamil indignation over the treatment
of prisoners under the P.T.A.. The lead story in the Saturday Review read: "There
were twenty-five external injuries and ten internal injuries in the deceased
Navaratnarajah's body. The contusions in his lungs could have been caused by
blows. I am of the opinion that death was due to cardio-respiratory failure,
due to multiple muscle injuries and contusions of the lungs. In my opinion,
adequate treatment from an institution would have saved his life." So said
Dr. N. Saravanapavananthan, A.J.M.O., submitting his medical report in the inquest
of 28-year old Navaratnarajah of Trincomalee who died in Army custody at the
Gurunagar Army Camp, Jaffna, on the 10th of April. Navaratnarajah was arrested
two weeks previously on suspicion under the P.T.A.."

N. Saravanapavananthan, Professor
of Forensic Medicine, Jaffna, is one of those souls as unbending as his native
palmyrah. He can be trusted never to compromise his professional judgement.
After the inquest on Navaratnarajah was completed, the police searched the documents
in the mortuary for the file. But Prof. Sara had taken the precaution of keeping
the file in a safe place. He was an old hand at this work. In 1971 as Judicial
Medical Officer in Galle during the Sinhalese youth insurgency, he could not
be prevented from exhuming a whole heap of bodies near Giniganga - bodies of
youngsters massacred en masse by security forces. The I.P.K.F. was compelled
to treat him with respect, even when on an occasion he reversed the opinion
of another doctor in the case of a rape complaint. The same issue of the Saturday
Review reflected the feeling of alienation felt by the Tamils in a hard hitting
editorial, titled "AWAY WITH THIS ABOMINABLE ACT". It contained these
words:

"The first of such laws
was promulgated in the very year of 'freedom' - the Citizenship Act No. 18 of
1948, which effectively excluded a section of the Tamils from citizenship. Then
came the Indian and Pakistan Residents (Citizenship) Act No. 3 of 1949 and the
Ceylon (Parliamentary Elections) Amendment Act No. 48 of 1949 which disenfranchised
a large section of Tamils. Then came the Sinhalese Only law in 1956, making
every Tamil in this country, irrespective of what doctorates some of them held,
virtual illiterates in their land of birth. The Prevention of Terrorism Act
is now over three years old. What has the government achieved by it up to now?"

30 April 30, 1983

This issue highlighted
the detention and torture of senior Architect, Arulanandam David, President
of Gandhiyam, at Panagoda military barracks. In a telegram sent to the president,
Lawyer Kumaralingam stated that detainee Rajendran was passing blood and was
suffering from frequency of micturation. Lawyers gained access to David through
a court order after David had been forced to sign a confession under torture.

The same issue also drew attention
to countrywide repression. A meeting of the Civil Rights Movement held on 15
April 1983 and presided over by its Chairman Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe
expressed concern at the growing indications of police misconduct. It listed
in particular: assaults against journalists at Kotmale; assault and unlawful
detention of a 17-year-old boy at the Kandy police station; assaults against
women strikers at Ekala; assaults against students at Jayewardenepura; death
of a suspect held in police custody at Matale; assault against pavement hawkers
in Colombo; and assault against former M.P. Mrs. Vivienne Gunawardene.

Following the announcement of
local government elections three U.N.P. men in the North were shot dead (Ratnasingam,
Rajaratnam and Muttiah). This brought to five the number of U.N.P. men killed
(with Thiagarajah in 1981, and Thambapillai in November 1982). In a leaflet
by the L.T.T.E. claiming responsibility for these killings the T.U.L.F. was
branded as an evil force which was Eelamist only in connection with elections.
The L.T.T.E. called for a boycott of the elections scheduled for 18th May, causing
some leading T.U.L.F. candidates to withdraw and U.N.P. members to leave the
party. At one meeting (8 May) when militant youths fired into the air, everyone,
including the speakers on the platform, ran away except for the T.U.L.F. Secretary
General and Leader of the Opposition, Mr. A. Amirthalingam.

14 May 1983:

This issue of
the Saturday Review had this to say: "Tamil Undergraduates and a few Tamil
lecturers fled the University of Peradeniya on Thursday and Friday following
assaults by some Sinhalese undergraduates. Some Tamil students have been admitted
to Kandy hospital with injuries. A few days back a student group had staged
a Tamil translation of Jean-Paul Satre's "Men Without Shadows". The
torture and cruelty by the Nazi soldiers of French resistance fighters was suspected
of being portrayed in a way as to resemble local conditions. Later pamphlets
issued by the L.T.T.E. were found pasted on the Science Faculty walls".

Another provocation for the
violence seems to be the tarring of the English and Sinhalese lettering at the
entrance to the University. This incident was suspected of having been engineered.
A long standing tradition at the Faculty of Engineering held when Sinhalese
students protected fellow Tamil students. Elsewhere Tamil students were told:
"No campus and no Eelam for you bastards."

The turn out for the local polls
on 18 May was low for reasons varying from support for the L.T.T.E. to fear.
The L.T.T.E. went beyond the boycott call and attacked a polling booth: "About
64 houses, three mini-buses, nine cars, three motor-cycles and 36 bicycles were
set on fire by Army men on a rampage at Kantharmadam in Jaffna on Wednesday
the 18th evening and night as soon as a state of emergency came into force a
5:00 p.m.. This is believed to be the Army's "reply" to the killing
of Corporal Jayewardene by militant youths at a polling centre in the vicinity
an hour earlier."

21 May, 1983:

The army had
now accepted collective reprisals as a weapon. In two months the army would
take on unarmed civilians. The Saturday Review contained a report by Dr. M.
S. L. Salgado, J.M.O., Colombo, indicating that the Gandhiyam secretary Dr.
Rajasundaram had almost certainly been badly assaulted and tortured.

The incidents at Pankulam and
Kantharmadam marked a conscious new trend in the government's thinking. What
took place at Kantharmadam was not a spontaneous action. It was systematically
done after a senior officer arrived and gave an order. With the exception of
one goat there was no loss of life. The crossing of the Rubicon which set the
stage for indiscriminate mass killing came with the announcement by a Defence
Ministry spokesman that: "The armed forces and the police in the North
are to be given legal immunity from judicial proceedings and wide ranging powers
of search and destroy". The University students in Jaffna came to the fore
in collecting money and materials and providing relief for the victims at Kantharmadam.

4 June, 1983:

The lead story
in the Saturday Review quoted the statement published in the Sun: "Under
such circumstances soldiers were compelled to react as during a war particularly
in their role of fighting armed terrorists who had no compunction about killing
servicemen or members of the public. In view of this it has been felt that police
and service-men in the North should be given the freedom of the battlefield
rather than having their morale sapped through conflicts with legal niceties.
This is not a peacetime situation and the police and services must be provided
with adequate safeguards when attempting to control the problem".

The new immunity was Emergency
Regulation 15A of 3 July 1983 which allowed the security forces to bury or cremate
bodies of people shot by them without revealing their identities or carrying
out inquests. It was widely believed that these new powers were a direct reaction
to the evidence proferred by A.J.M.O. Dr. Saravanapavanandan at the inquest
of Navaratnarajah who died in army custody. This was not an issue connected
with the "freedom of the battlefield." It was murder of a helpless
captive. In general Tamils became both angry and frightened. They rightly believed
that the government was arming itself with powers for some course of action
that went beyond dealing with an admittedly deteriorating law and order situation.

Almost 12 hours after the government's
announcement of tough new measures under the Public Security Act, Mr. Thilagar,
a hospital employee and U.N.P. candidate for the municipal elections was shot
at 6:15 a.m. on 4 June, at the Jaffna hospital. If the government was heading
towards lighting the tinder, the militants were determined to help things along.

The same issue of the Saturday
Review also carried news of an army rampage in Vavuniya: "Service personnel
destroyed the Gandhiyam farm at Kovilkulam, about one and a half miles away
from Vavuniya town on Wednesday 1st June. The rampaging servicemen who came
in trucks destroyed the crops and huts and set fire to the farm buildings and
vehicles. Three tractors and a van were burnt."

This happened after a four man
guerrilla group flung bombs at an airforce jeep and then opened fire, killing
airmen U. L. M. Perera and W. A. Gunasekera. This happened at the vegetable
market where the airmen were shopping. It may be noted that this incident took
place before the announcement of new measures and there was no loss of civilian
life. The guerrillas were later identified with a group within the P.L.O.T.E..

The 4 June issue further reported
that on 30 May, Sabaratnam Palanivel, a young van driver of Valvettithurai was
dragged into the Valvettithurai army camp and shot dead by Corporal M. Wimalaratne.
This happened around 4:30 a.m. when Palanivel was driving home after taking
some relatives who wanted to catch the Trincomalee bus. Later an army truck
ran over the dead body. This was the last time army offenders were brought before
a Magistrate. Hence forward the situation in the country was to be qualitatively
different. During the course of the Tamil insurgency, every death up to this
time was an issue that aroused keen concern. Over the next five years, both
freedom and value of life would continue to decline, not only in the North,
but also in the South.

11 June, 1983:

A last plea
for sanity was contained in a telegram sent to President Jayewardene on behalf
of the Civil Rights Movement, by its secretary Desmond Fernando. The subject
was the new powers being granted to the security forces. Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe,
the president of the C.R.M. was to die a broken man on 23 October, the same
year - broken by the blood letting that was to envelope the whole country. The
C.R.M. felt a frequent need to refer to the events of 1971 involving the Sinhalese
youth insurgency, which led to its formation when the Left government of Mrs.
Bandaranaike was in power. This was because Jayewardene's chosen tactics to
dismiss the counsels of the C.R.M. was to brand it a Communist or Communist
inspired (and hence subversive) organisation. That was how the destructive mind
of the government worked. Quoted below is an extract from the telegram, published
in the Saturday Review of 11 June, 1963:

"The granting
of such powers will create again the excesses of 1971 when similar powers resulted
in deaths under torture, indiscriminate killings and execution without trial
by security forces, which usurp functions of courts in determining who is a
terrorist and who is not; and leading to slaughter of many never established
to have been involved in insurgent activities. Revocation of this horrifying
regulation was one of the main demands of the CRM at its inception in 1971.

"... It must guarantee
that all such persons are dealt with by due process of the law and in keeping
with the fundamental principles of justice... for otherwise a government
would be flouting the principles of justice that are vital to democracy in the
very act of claiming to defend democratic institutions.

"The Working Committee
of the C.R.M. also points out that the International Covenant of Civil and Political
Rights which Your Excellency's Government has signed specifically provides that
the right to life and the right to protection from torture cannot be derogated
from even at a time of emergency threatening the life of the nation."

This plea came against a background
of racist attacks throughout the country. The situation in Trincomalee was particularly
grim, where the Saturday Review of 11 June reported one killing and several
bomb attacks. The fact that these racist attacks were taking place while there
was a curfew on, strongly suggested the connivance of the armed forces.

The situation there was to get
worse in the weeks to come. In one incident several Tamil passengers travelling
in a van were attacked and burnt with the van. Several Tamils who experienced
these harrowing days in Trincomalee said that during curfew, racist hoodlums
would attack them at home, and if they tried to flee, the security forces would
shoot them as curfew breakers. It was clear that the government had decided
to use brazen force to drive away Tamils from several areas of the North and
East where they felt relatively safe. Especially targeted were the Trincomalee
District and the settlements where Tamil refugees from the 1977 violence had
after several years of hard work become economically stable. There was the chilly
nip of unreason in the air.

On 2 July, 1983, the Saturday
Review was sealed by the state just before its front and back pages could be
printed. With all its shortcomings it had been a voice of humanity. Before the
referendum fraud of December 1982, it had done for the whole country a courageous
service, which the press in the South was constrained from doing, by giving
articulation to a wide spectrum of voices from around the country protesting
at the deception. It had done much to secure an impressive vote in Jaffna against
the government, despite the T.U.L.F.'s silence. Henceforward to stand up for
reason and humanity in Ceylon, was to become several times more dangerous -
in the South as well as in the North. Shortly after the July 1983 violence,
Mr. S. Sivanayagam, the paper's editor, would seek exile in India.

When the paper resumed publication
several months later, its role would be very different, one of its main tasks
being to catalogue a seemingly endless series of gory happenings. Constraints
on press freedom would come from unexpected quarters. The old interest in political
debate and development issues would be vastly reduced. One would miss contributions
from readers on the importance of the Palmyrah Palm, heritage matters, problems
of the Vanni farmer etc.. The optimism and the sense of forward movement were
gone. Many of the lights had gone out. The sins of omission and commission had
much to do with this. Even as the paper was being sealed, it was preparing for
a future that was qualitatively different. The unpublished issue of 2 July,
1983 had the following lines from its future editor, Gamini Navaratne, B.Sc.
(Econ.) London, author of "The Chinese Connexion," and for 30 years
a Westminster style lobby correspondent: "If I have my own way, I will
send most of the present politicians to the moon. That's where they really belong."
That was saying a lot about the future.

We see that during the years
1977-83 there were two main currents in the Tamil community outside the scope
of parliamentary politics. One was to build up village level organisations of
communities, economically viable and conscious of their dignity and rights as
persons and communities. Their main weapon was to express, nonviolently, a feeling
of public anger and outrage when this dignity was violated. Such a tendency
was represented in Jaffna by the activities of the students.

The other tendency was represented
by the L.T.T.E. and sections of the P.L.O.T.E.. Their hit and run attacks against
the state, especially the police and the armed services,were creating a momentum
of their own. This tendency underwent rapid expansion after July 1983, marginalising
the people. Groups such as the E.R.O.S. and the E.P.R.L.F. concentrated mainly
on grass-roots work amongst the masses before July 1983, and did continue with
this for a time afterwards. But with India's entry and its adoption of the militant
groups, all of them became primarily military organisations.

The failure of the Tamil leadership
during this period was its lack of determination to move decisively to resolve
both intellectually and in practice its ambivalent attitude towards violence.
The murder of Dr. Rajasundaram during the second Welikade prison massacre of
27 July 1983 marked the end of an era. Much imaginative and dedicated work by
individuals who gave all they had was forgotten. By 1988 few lips would utter
the name of Dr. Rajasundaram. We are without a sense of history or a sense of
gratitude. That explains what became of us. There is something fatally sick
in a community that expends inordinate emotion on every passing scene, forgetting
the last and unable to make the connections with the events that had gone before.
A return to sanity will also involve a sober evaluation of our past. Many believe
that if the July 1983 violence had not intervened, the first tendency would
have overcome the second.[Top]